The Hobsons Bay YMCA Youth Parliament team is calling for a bounty to reduce northern Pacific seastar numbers in Port Phillip Bay.
The marine pest, first sighted in the bay in 1995, has been blamed for a sharp decline in bottom-dwelling fish.
The team of six, comprising Sam Leeder, Jackson Young, Robert Milich, Charlotte Morrison, Alex Bowden and Yasmin Poole last week introduced the Northern Pacific Seastar Regulation Bill 2017.
It calls for a bounty and the establishment of a management body to control the seastars.
“Northern Pacific seastars are an invasive species that is located in Port Phillip waterways and has created large ecological damage to local flora and fauna,” the bill says. “We propose a bounty on the northern Pacific seastars. With the correct training, members of the community can collect the seastars, deposit them at their local seastar collection centre and be paid.
“This would reduce the overall population of northern Pacific seastars to alleviate ecological toll on Port Phillip waters.”
The bill was passed and will now be considered by the relevant Victorian government minister.
More than 25 bills originating in Youth Parliament have become legislation, including mandatory bike helmets, gun reforms, roadside drug testing and the over-the-counter morning after pill.
Goya Dmytryshchak
